Balcony Gardening: Cilantro and Mint

When we moved into our new apartment this past summer, my roommates and I had one clear goal we all agreed on: we must have a balcony garden.

Over the fall semester, we kept at it, but as the semester drew to a close we left all of our plants unattended for three weeks. All of our main herbs died (basil, mint, rosemary), so Amanda and I decided we should plant new ones when we came back from winter break.

This past weekend we bought a cilantro plant from Publix and a beautiful mint plant from Trader Joe’s. Sadly, we couldn’t find basil (probably our most used herb other than mint), so we’re still on the lookout for that!

We decided we should transfer the herbs into a bigger pot so they could grow nicer. Our basil and mint plants this past semester struggled in their tiny plastic pots. We picked the big pot on the left because whatever we planted there never took hold.

The first thing we did was get down and dirty by dumping out the majority of the soil that was in that left pot. We actually have no idea what was supposed to grow there, maybe some type of leafy green.

Then we transferred the little cilantro and the little mint into the pot. Cue some glamour shots Amanda took of me doing the process…

Finally, we put our new babies in the new pot, filled it with soil, and added a little bit of fertilizer and water. Now, it’s time for them to do their part and grow beautifully so I have stuff to put in my food and in my smoothies and Amanda has stuff to add to the tops of fancy drinks she makes for us.

• balcony garden
• cilantro
• garden
• gardening
• mint